We have thoroughly enjoyed the trip along the Erie Canal, but not without some anxiety and lessons learned. Catan is currently tied up at Sylvan Beach on Lake Oneida, which is one day of boating and 2 locks away from entering Lake Ontario (then one more day home to Gananoque). It took us 3 days to transit from Waterford to Sylvan Beach whilst passing through 22 locks enroute. At this point in our journey, we are literally counting the days until we are home in Gananoque Marina. So, it has proven most disconcerting having to deal with any issue that distracts us from our much coveted and sentimental conclusion to our looping adventure.
The problem – Catan’s port engine did not have a good week. We need to replace the stop solenoid (currently we must manually close the solenoid in the engine room, as opposed to pushing the stop button on the control panel). More recently, the start solenoid has been temperamental as well, forcing us to start the engine from the fly bridge, as opposed to from the control console in the salon.
These are all little idiosyncrasies that we embrace readily, and add to the “when we get home to-do list”. Apparently, the port engine was not happy with our pragmatic “when we get home” maintenance philosophy. Consequently, it threw a metaphorical hissy fit.
On our first day out on the Erie Canal, the port engine over heated and had to be shut down at the most in opportune time (of course). There were 8 boats packed into a lock and we were just about to come out of a lock, when Alison noticed a sustained, inexplicable high temperature reading (this is the first time we had encountered this issue on our trip). I did not have time to check the raw water intake basket before we had to exit with the caravan of other boats, but knowing the serious mechanical implications of the continued running of overheated diesel engine, we shut it down immediately.
We pulled out of the lock and immediately tied up alongside the lock wall. The lock operator allowed us to stay overnight while we tried to trouble shoot the problem. Long story short, with the help of our fellow boaters texting back & forth, I tried to trouble shoot the engine overheating problem. Unfortunately, despite trying a few fixes, we still had an overheating issue the next day. I was learning a lot, but still not able to resolve our issue. We had no other option than to run on one engine for the next two days, until we reach Sylvan Beach where our friends have access to a car – and generously offered to get down in our engine room and help us sort this out.
Operating a boat of our size with one engine is challenging (steering) and certainly new to us! Oh, and our thrusters also decided to quit, which REALLY makes maneuvering the boat in and out of locks difficult, to say the least. Bottom line, Catan spent the next two and half days valiantly limping in and out of locks, towards Sylvan Beach on one engine. Knowing that we are now just one good engine away from total calamity, what should have been a joyous, homeward bound, picturesque run on the Erie Canal, became somewhat less serene and certainly more worrisome.
Correction, it proved somewhat less serene only until we adjusted to our new circumstances, understood Catan’s new limitations and embraced our one engine reality as a glass half full, not a glass half empty. We have a twin engine boat for just this scenario! It is just that we had not been confronted with, nor had to deal with this one engine conundrum before.
Our port engine drama ended happily. In fact the port engine was fine all along! Turns out, the engine instrumentation at the control console had an obscure, small fuse burned out, which resulted in all manner of false engine temperature readings. Again, thanks to two friends willing to share their expertise, we were finally able to get to the bottom of our problem (and I learned a lot along the way).
With only two days of boating left to get back to Gananoque, hopefully we will be spared of any more challenging adventures!
